


Black

by joan_waterhouse



Category: Firefly, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Astronomy, Crossover, ESA, M/M, Mathematics, NASA, Outer Space, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joan_waterhouse/pseuds/joan_waterhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"This is Draco," she says. "This part of the sky is yours. No one can ever take it from you."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Black

**Author's Note:**

> I used this Space Shuttle Atlantis [launch video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbgSwuU8xY), its [transcript](http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/shuttle_115_launch_transcript.html) and this [transcript of the Challenger crash](http://web.archive.org/web/20060504192732/www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/51Lchap13timeline.html). Firefly's Chinese swear words are taken from [here](http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases) and [here](http://www.thehallway.net/storage/fireflyquotes/index.htm): allegedly 'Tsai boo shr' means 'No way' and 'Ching-wao tsao duh liou mahng' means 'frog-humping sonofabitch'.

       
_take me out to the black  
tell them I ain't comin' back  
burn the land and boil the sea  
you can't take the sky from me  
{{Firefly Theme Song, Joss Whedon}}_   

  


  


## Black

  


  
  
**Excerpt NASA-TV transcript, STS-203 Space Shuttle Hecate launch video, Friday July 10 2015:**   


[…]  


NASA TV: T minus twenty seconds. Firing chain is armed. Fifteen. Sound-suppression water system activated.  


Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, go for main engines start, two, one and liftoff of space shuttle Hecate. Marking a new era in the collaboration of NASA and ESA with the world's Wizarding community. On board, the first Wizard Astronaut, Draco Malfoy.  


HOUSTON: Houston is now controlling. Engines now at 72 percent, beginning to throttle back up as the vehicle passes through the area of maximum dynamic pressure. Hecate, Houston, go at throttle up.  


HECATE: Copy, go at throttle up.  


NASA TV: All three engines are back at full throttle. We're now one minute twenty seconds into the flight.  


HOUSTON: Flight, GC [Ground control, ed.], we've had negative contact, loss of downlink.  


NASA TV: Mission control is trying to confirm radio connection to Hecate.  


HOUSTON: RSO [Range safety officer, ed.] reports vehicle vanished.  


NASA TV: It appears the shuttle has... Um. This is probably just a glitch in the...  


[…]  


  


*

The ship clearly hasn't been built to land on a rocky planet. To see such a beauty broken and torn is like a punch to Kaylee's gut. Inside the wreck there are seven orange bundles of clothes. The smell is horrid. She presses her hand against her mouth to keep from choking. The bundles are strapped into seats; six of them are completely motionless. The seventh is shivering, clutching a small piece of glowing wood - some sort of distress beacon or life signal device, Kaylee guesses - it's covering the bundle with a faint yellow light.

The Cap'n opens his mouth to speak, but says nothing. He motions for them to carry on with the plan, to take whatever tech they can use and get out of here. He himself just keeps standing there, though, his lips pressed into a hard line.

The wounded man isn't even asking for help. He's probably not even noticing they're there, the way his grey eyes are staring off into the distance as if trying to decide if life is worth holding on to.

"Too many to take care of already." Kaylee thinks she hears her Cap'n mumble.

But then he shakes himself and shouts, "Tell Simon we need him!" and hoists the guy over his shoulder and carries him back on board Serenity.

*

It's his eleventh birthday. Today he is allowed to stay up late, late enough for the sky to turn black and the stars to start spreading a twinkling blanket over Wiltshire. His mother leads him up over winding stairs he's never used before. Behind them stumbles a house-elf, a leather case balanced on his shoulders. Once they reach the roof he sets it down in front of Draco and lifts the lid to reveal a set of metal rods, cylinders and lenses.

Draco sets up his first telescope by the light of his mother's wand. She is crouched down beside him, shows him how to adjust it. Once it is ready to use, she casts a tracking charm; now it always keeps its target.

"Your father's side of the family has given you your last name, but my side - the Black side - has given you your first." His mother recounts their family tree; with every new name she points her wand and makes a different part of the sky light up. First there are the constellations Andromeda, Cassiopeia and Cygnus, then there are the stars Arcturus and Regulus. Bellatrix and Sirius, both stars as well, are invisible under the horizon that time of year.

One last time she raises her wand and speaks, "Signus Draco Revelio!" Bright blue lines appear in the sky, draw a small triangle and a wide zig-zag expanding above it. "This is Draco," she says. "This part of the sky is yours. No one can ever take it from you."

*

"He is Magic," River says, her hand outstretched, eyes wide, when she first sees him. Her words crackle like static; Kaylee can almost see the sparks.

And he really is Magic. Not the way Simon is, when he smiles at Kaylee, tucks her hair behind her ear and suddenly makes the vast emptiness of space shine and glimmer only for her. No, this guy is genuinely Magical with an upper case M.

He says he's been called Draco Malfoy once, but he's just Black now. He claims he's a Wizard. Not as in computer wizard, but as in conjuring galaxies in coffee cups, or dragons on the back of a plate by the wave of his hand.

He makes Wash's Dinosaur figures come to life. "Tsai boo shr!" Wash gasps and claps his hands like an excited four-year-old.

Jayne just rolls his eyes and calls Black a _magician_. It's less than a second before his hair grows and braids itself into the most ridiculous 'do.

The cap'n stands in the doorway and says nothing. Kaylee thinks there's the trace of a smile.

*

There are tears in his mother's eyes, her hands are cold on his cheeks. She kisses his forehead and mumbles, "Draco, my son. My only son." By the way his father smiles, Draco can tell that he takes it for pride.

Draco is led forward to kneel before the Dark Lord, is told to offer his arm. He stretches it out on the cold ebony table and lets it get strapped down. No quiver shall mar the perfection of the Dark Mark.

Heavy words are spoken, a nod in his direction and Draco mindlessly repeats the vows, tells himself he doesn't care what they mean.

When the tip of the Dark Lord's wand starts to carve its path along Draco's skin there is no pain. Draco has already closed his eyes. Light years away he calculates trajectories, orbits, constellations. Pulls his favourite theories tight around himself like a blanket. So absorbed is he in these familiar patterns and numbers, that when he finally opens his eyes again and sees the blood-smeared Dark Mark it doesn't feel like part of his arm at all.

*

Black doesn't talk much and when he does, it sounds very strange. It's almost funny the way he uses words like some long-dead playwright would, and pronounces them all odd-like. Most of the time, though, he is silent and pores over maps and Wash's notebooks. Kaylee supposes he's trying to figure out a way home.

But the 'verse is huge and Simon says, "Serenity is our home now." Maybe it could be for Black too.

"Give 'im an hour in Inara's shuttle. That'll fix him, alright," Jayne says with a crooked grin, rude hand gestures and everything. There's the faintest blush spreading on Black's pale cheeks, but when he looks up, his eyes don't search for Inara.

The cap'n clears his throat, starts to rummage around in the cupboards. "Who's hidden the damn coffee again," he grunts.

Inara lets her gaze wander from the Cap'n to Black, a grin threatening to spread on her lips. Then she departs, shrouded in the misty steam of her freshly brewed green tea.

*

This isn't Draco's war. He doesn't _want to_ kill anyone. Much less here, in the only place that has felt like home since the Dark Lord has taken Malfoy Manor. He just needs to get this over with, save himself, his mother, his family. And so he lifts his wand.

Above Dumbledore's right shoulder Jupiter is barely visible. Telescopes are lined up along the walls; they all point right back at Draco. That's when Draco knows what it is he feels beside the terror and the anger and the desperation: it is shame.

Snape finally takes the weight off his shoulders, but Draco doesn't feel relieved; it's only the beginning and already he has failed. Bellatrix (8-9 M☉ | 5.7 R☉ | 4000 L☉ | 21500 K) roughly takes his hand and pulls him with her, downwards, out into the sickeningly comfortable summer air. Above them a billion stars erupt in the perfectly clear sky. _No one can ever take this from you_ , his mother has promised years ago. He searches for this blanket, looks in the remotest parts of his mind, but this time there's no calculation difficult and no hypothesis complex enough to chase away the fear.

*

Kaylee wakes up to low voices. "So what's the snake mean," someone says. She sits up a bit and peaks out over the side of her hammock.

The two men are backlit by the light outside her engine room. Black has his sleeve rolled up, his arm outstretched. The Cap'n is tracing something on Black's arm with his finger. Black exhales a shivery breath, tries to pull away his arm, but doesn't move away when the Cap'n leans into his personal space.

"You don't have to tell me," he says softly, "just being curious."

Black raises his eyes. "No, it's all right." He smiles and says, "out here it doesn't mean anything." Then the Cap'n's lips...

Kaylee's already closed her eyes very tightly. She really shouldn't be listening in on this. She really shouldn't. So she quickly lies back in her hammock, plays asleep and fakes a snore.

Next thing she hears is, "Ching-wao tsao duh liou mahng! Ain't there no privacy on this boat?"

"Well, I know a bunk bed not far from here," Black says, and for the first time since Kaylee's known him he sounds genuinely happy.

* end *


End file.
